AN AUTUMN'S TALE

Too much on the internet is depressing. Which, I suspect, is why so many visitors come here for my more perverse essays (to which I will post no links, find them by yourselves) as well as several articles about pipes and tobacco. Of which this will not be one.

One of the other little pieces that gets read a lot is about Cherie Chung.
A famous movie star, and a favourite screen presence.

鍾楚紅

Cherie Chung (鍾楚紅'jung cho hung') was one of the top Hong Kong actresses till she left the industry in the nineties. In many movies, her presence gilded the entire experience for the viewer, and for any one going to movie theatres during her heyday whatever role she played was imbued with a vulnerable memorability.

She made many great movies.
She was great in many movies.

金都戲院、世界戲院、大明星戲院、華聲戲院、新聲戲院

There were five active venues showing Canto flicks at one time. The Pagoda Palace hasn't existed for nearly two decades. The World Theater closed even before then; the building is now a Chinesey-poo boutique-y centre for the kwailo to suck up atmosphere. The Great Star occasionally hosts art performances for non-Chinese people; interpretive cabaret stuff and meaningful crap, or something like that, très bohème. The Washington is now a funeral paper goods store, and the Sun Sing -- which many people of an older generation remember fondly, because they went there when the neighborhood was both insular and flourishing -- is now a gutted ruin after a long period as a depressing mall with cheap knic-knac vendors, with an eccentric egg tart (蛋撻 'daan taat') bakery still in the side space.

Chinese cinema, both HK and Mainland, has gone all superhero cgi.


Most of the truly stellar actors and directors from the eighties and nineties have left Hong Kong, and are now doing other things. Movies are pointless when nobody goes to theatres anymore and everybody watches everything on their hand-held devices.


There was a time when people went to the movies several times a month. Almost all cinemas in this quadrant of the city have closed. They've been replaced by gyms, condos, and holes in the ground.


SF is very fond of holes in the ground.
That means progress!




AFTER THOUGHT

Today is probably a good day for milk tea and an egg tart at tea time, around four o'clock. The place with all the noisy old people.




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